Letter from Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour Member.
The BBC Panorama programme this week uncovered some appallingly bad pollution by some water companies, often pollution that would largely go unreported without the activities of a whistleblower. The programme presenter, Joe Crowley interviewed the whistleblower from the Environment Agency who gave an insight into some of the activities of the water companies.
United Utilities is one such company covering the North West of England. Although it has supposedly one the best results in meeting its targets in term of dumping raw sewage, it now transpires that they achieve this record by cheating. Water companies are allowed to dump raw sewage only in exceptional conditions, for example, after heavy rainfall. Crowley discovered that companies have dumped untreated sewage after even modest amounts of rain.
When it comes to reporting the dumping of sewage, the Environment Agency apply four categories in terms of scale. Category One is the most serious and Four is “minimal” therefore having no requirement to report it. But evidence suggests that the United Utilities company have downgraded Category Three incidents to avoid scrutiny.
The whistleblower told the programme that the water companies generally ‘control’ the evidence and therefore dictate the outcomes on the pollution that goes into our seas and rivers. There is also a financial gain for the companies for reaching pollution targets. United Utilities were able to secure a further £5mn from its customers because it has a “better” record than many of the other companies.
But Panorama made the astonishing claim that only 5% of reported incidents are ver einvestigated by The Environmental standards Agency! On another TV programme, Politics Live, a panel briefly discussed the activities of the water companies. One of them, George Monbiot, was completely correct when he said that the problem of sewage pollution is a product of privatisation and the hollowing out of the Environmental Agency.
Under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the public ownership of the water companies was part of Labour’s Programme. It is a very popular policy among the public, as regular opinion polls show. To beging with, Keir Starmer also pretended to be supportive of the idea – until he was elected leader. Now the right-wing are opposed to renationalisation, argueing that it would cost £100mn. They argue that a cap on water bosses bonuses and bigger fines are better ways to hold them to account. But it’s the water bosses and their shareholders who call the shots, not the regulators.
The 1945 Labour Government were able to nationalise a fifthe of the economy through the issuing of ‘bonds’ to the former owners. Even that is too generous for today’s water shareholders. They have ripped the companies off by tens of billions, while piling tens of billions of debts onto the companies’ balance sheets. I would advocate minimal compensation, because the shareholders have already made a fortune from privatised water.
Starmer’s latest tilt to the right has him resorting to eulogies of Thatcher, the arch privatiser and union basher. We are supposed to believe that Starmer is ‘playing clever’ by winning over Tory supporters, but in reality, his real audience is big business. He is giving notice that the Establishment have nothing to fear from an incoming Labour Government.
More’s the pity. What we really need is a Labour Government that defends the interests of the majority and only a socialist Programme can provide the tools to secure a fair and equal society.
The Panorama programme is still available to watch on BBC i-player, here. Picture at top is still from the Panorama programme.
I saw that! It showed the failure of the ‘Social Market Model, beloved of Tony Blair. His idea was that you let ‘the market’ work, harnessing its supposed dynamism and innovation, but controlling it through regulation. Instead what happens is that the capitalists either capture the regulators, or control the information they see (as in this case), or outspend them with fleets of expensive lawyers and sue them at the drop of a hat. You cannot control what you don’t own.